Ralph Hollis

Ralph Hollis is a roboticist whose labs have built robots that balance on a ball, assemble products as cooperating agents, and let people feel virtual objects. Born in Kansas in 1941, he earned a Ph.D. in solid state physics at the University of Colorado in 1975, built the Newt mobile robot in the 1970s, and joined IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1978, where he managed advanced robotics from 1986 to 1993. At Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute from 1993, he was founding director of the Microdynamic Systems Laboratory, where his group built a magnetic levitation haptic interface that won a 2010 R&D 100 Award and created the first successful ballbot. He is Professor Emeritus in the Robotics Institute.

Now at: Carnegie Mellon University
Badges: Bridge
Loyal
Pioneer

Timeline

1964–1975

Physics degrees and a Colorado PhD

Born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1941, he earns B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics at Kansas State University in 1964 and 1965. From 1965 to 1970, he works on computer simulation of space-flight vehicles at the Autonetics Division of North American Aviation, and in 1975 he completes a Ph.D. in solid state physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
1970s

The Newt mobile robot

In the 1970s, he builds Newt, one of the first mobile robots with an onboard computer. His article about Newt becomes a cover story in Byte magazine, and the robot appears in the NOVA documentary "The Mind Machines".
1978–1993

Robotics research at IBM

He joins IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1978 as a Research Staff Member in magnetism, acoustics and robotics, and manages advanced robotics in the Manufacturing Research Department from 1986 to 1993. At IBM, he develops the Fine Positioner and the Magic Wrist, a magnetically levitated fine-motion device with six degrees of freedom that mounts on the end of a robot arm.
1993

Moving to Carnegie Mellon

In 1993, he moves from IBM to Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute as a senior research scientist. As founding director of the Microdynamic Systems Laboratory, he leads Minifactory, an agent-based assembly system in which each robot is a self-describing agent.
1997–2008

Magnetic levitation haptics

His research group builds a working magnetic levitation haptic interface in 1997. Its single moving part, a bowl-shaped flotor embedded with six coils of wire, floats on magnetic fields. In 2008, a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant pays for 10 copies, six of them going to researchers in the United States and Canada.
2004–2006

The first ballbot

Beginning in 2004, he develops the first successful ballbot, a term he coins for a robot that balances on a single sphere. He presents the work in October 2005 at the International Symposium for Robotics Research in San Francisco. In 2006, Carnegie Mellon announces Ballbot, a 95-pound battery-operated robot that moves in any direction on a urethane-coated metal sphere.
2010

An R&D 100 Award

His magnetic levitation haptic interface receives a 2010 R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine. Butterfly Haptics LLC, a Carnegie Mellon spin-off, produces a commercial version called the Maglev 200.
As of October 2026

Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon

In October 2022, he gives a Georgia Tech seminar on ballbots, including SIMbot, a mobile robot with only a body and a ball. He is Professor Emeritus in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon, with research on cooperative high-precision manipulation, haptic interaction and dynamically stable mobile robots.